Quality of Service (QoS) describes the overall performance of a network (e.g., a computer network, a telephony network, or a combination thereof). In particular, QoS often focuses on performance as seen by a user of such a network, and considers things such as error rates, bandwidth, throughput, delays, etc.
QoS plays a significant role in both enterprise networks and Communications Service Provider (CSP) networks. An example CSP network could include one operated by a large service provider such as VERIZON or AT&T, which includes a combination of cellular service, Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) service, cable television service, broadband Internet service, etc. A CSP network is typically a larger scale network than an enterprise network. In CSP networks, voice, video, data, and mobile services are often shared among multiple tenants.
As networks grow, so too does the number of network interfaces that are available for QoS monitoring. With this increased quantity of network interfaces, along with significantly increased traffic levels and more “mission critical” applications being deployed on modern networks, the need for QoS enforcement increases. This becomes particularly important in CSP networks which must meet strict Service Level Agreements (SLAB) or face revenue penalties.
Network interfaces may carry a wide variety of types of network traffic (known as “traffic classes”). Some example traffic classes could include voice, video conferencing, email, streaming video, and web traffic, for example. These different traffic classes may require unique handling which respects their sensitivities for delay, loss, jitter and throughput. To analyze network interfaces and the traffic classes they support, QoS polling is performed based on a plurality of so-called “key performance indicators” (KPIs). Some example KPIs could include a quantity of dropped packets, a probability that an incoming packet will be dropped, a quantity of delayed packets, etc. The same KPI may be analyzed separately for each of the plurality of traffic classes.
Considering the large amount of KPIs that can be analyzed for a given network interface, it is not uncommon for a given QoS polling cycle to yield hundreds of thousands if not millions of KPI responses. This amount of data will continue to grow as networks grow to support an increasing number of network interfaces. Sifting through this vast amount of data to make appropriate network decisions poses a significant challenge for network administrators.